#going gray

I've missed random ship asks so much.

Wolfstar:

Ok I think Remus goes gray pretty early (think like... 17) due to a combination of genetics and his furry little problem. He is a bit self conscious of it at first but Sirius just makes jokes like naming the grays after specific times they (Marauders) did something stupid. He's spent many an evening by the Gryffindor fire talking to idolizing first years like "... and we call this little patch here-" he runs his hands over a little chunk of graying hair at the nape of Remus's neck- "the nest, after that time we accidentally set the pixies meant for the Slytherins loose in the hallway and had to hide inside suits of armor for 7 hours while they were rounded up by the ministry. And THIS one is called Rosmerta. Don't ask why."

Sirius never goes gray because he was never in Azkaban and therfore lived a long and happy life with his perfect hair.

Drarry:

Draco notices Harry's graying hair first and is immediately turned on by it. Harry rather enjoys his graying hair after that.

Draco charms his hair when he starts to see silver, and no one- not even Harry- ever sees him without the charms. It's not that Draco is annoyed with growing old, but the silver (in his very wrong opinion) makes his hair look flat and dry, which is unbefitting of a Malfoy.

Banksway:

Adam's hair starts to show some dark gray in his mid 30's, and it makes him uncharacteristically emotional to realize he never got to see his father with gray hair. He passed halfway through Adam's sophomore year of college, and Adam is only just now, because of the damn gray hairs, letting himself grieve all the time they should have had together.

My grampa had a full set of grey hair by the time he was thirty and I got my first grey at five. Safe to say, by high school I started getting a nice bit of white hair on one side of my head. After college, I was pretty much half and half but I had been dying it brown.

About 5 months before COVID dropped, I noticed that white/silver hair wasn't taking color well. It turned my hair a lighter brown. Later I chose a box dye of darkest brown and so you could see the ends of my hair dark brown, the middle orange light brown and the top a light brown. It looked great (note the sarcasm).

Awkward wedding photo just after final dye

As I only really dyed the scalp/top part and not the ends, I decided to hit the whole thing with the darkest color I could and ended up looking like Professor Snape for my sister's wedding. After that I stopped dying my hair. About a year and a half later I was getting an itch to dye my hair a color but liked how healthy my hair was. I never applied any heat to it or dies so mine is a little bit of hair band trauma, it was nice.

But I added in some purple dye (it was supposed to be light) trying both Arctic Fox and Manic Panic. The one of them didn't take at all one did slightly but I had to use a lot and keep it on for hours. The white hair wanted none of it and it washed out fairly quick, leaving just a glow behind.

Well after that I gave up and cut the orange from around the time of the wedding off and let the color fade. It regrew and was pretty nice looking.

Sadly, while hanging out with a guy, he asked if I dyed my hair blonde and I was like, "You're crazy. Get your eyes checked."

A week later I was checking out my hair and it did look a bit yellow from the ear down. Online it said that you can pick up pigments from Air pollutants and other things as well as hair products. I only have one hair product that they might cause discolorization which is like a Garnier Apple conditioner but it's very faint, so not sure if that's what's happening to my hair.

And given that my hair doesn't like taking color I wasn't sure how well this was going to work but I got myself a purple shampoo /conditioner 3 set pack from Matrix. I did as the bottle said and nothing. I was still yellow.

You can see some of the yellow on the strand I'm holding but the yellow is mostly ear down. This was after Matrix.

A week and a half later I got myself Brand Mondo's Supernova Blonde Toning Purple Shampoo/Conditioner and his Forcefield Heat Shield spray. Now make a note, his conditioner said it should stay on for 5 minutes and I left mine on for 2 hours, so I didn't exactly follow the procedure but I think it worked well.

I saw a video of his where he reacted to people who used purple shampoo to dye their hair. He made a comment that said somey along the lines of that he didn't know why people left the shampoo on for several hours and if anything they should do the conditioner for longer. So I decided to take his comment out of context a bit and I put the conditioner on first to almost dry but slightly damp hair and left it on for two hours before rinsing. Then I shampooed, immediately rinsed and then did the conditioner again but only for the recommended 5 minutes.

And it looks like this.

Obviously I missed some sections or maybe they were just sections they really didn't want to take, but considering the purple is so light and metallic you looking because of my current silver hair, it blends pretty well.

Also things to note. My hair is naturally dry, it doesn't really create oil very often unless I'm touching it a lot or I put my head out the window of a car as it's moving (like a dog). But I will say it made my hair feel a little dryer and because I like to play with fate, I also did not use any gloves while doing this process so underneath my fingertips there's a little bit of purple but my hands felt pretty dry. I would suggest definitely using some kind of moisturizing product on your hair if you can afterwards or doing a mask.

I also used his heat shield product but I have not actually put any heat on it yet so it might have been a missed opportunity to try that. Do I imagine it would work very well.

Here's some bad pics of me growing out my hair, pre-COVID, when I was still going into office looking like this.

Examining the barely noticeable patch of gray hair at my temple with the same excitement and trepidation I imagine all the other girls once felt about their developing breasts

I never felt it then, but now I think I'm beginning to understand

On their own, my silver strands blend in among the tawny brown

I keep hoping they'll fill out as a streak and make me look like Frankenstein's Bride

Then, perhaps, I will finally reach the ethereal level of ugly-pretty that means the world can't touch you anymore

Maybe then I'll feel like a woman

Or at least like I've grown